“Congratulations! You are pregnant!” Wouldn’t this time be even more special if you didn’t feel so awful. More than 50% of women experience a degree of morning sickness in pregnancy (usually in the first trimester, but not always) which can range from a general feeling of fatigue and nausea to constant vomiting. While there are not many options to stop morning sickness completely, there are a number of strategies that can help you manage it — including hoping it ends by weeks 12-14 of pregnancy as it commonly does.

Eat something

When you feel terrible, the last thing you feel like doing is eating, but avoiding food is likely to make you feel much worse. This is because when blood glucose levels drop, nausea can increase, so making an effort to eat small amounts of light foods every hour or two will help to reduce nausea.

Go for salty options

Think vegemite on crackers or cheese and even a few plain potato chips. These foods can work wonders for nausea and while these may not always be the healthiest choices, eating a small amount of something when you are managing morning sickness is much better than eating nothing at all. Fresh, cold fruit can work, as well as frozen fruit and yoghurt options.

Keep hydrated

If you are vomiting, keeping hydrated is an essential part of managing morning sickness. Iced cold water, soda or sparkling water (and even sports drinks or electrolyte solutions added to your water!) are all good options to help manage headaches and the general feelings of fatigue associated with frequent vomiting and dry retching.

Try ginger

There are very few foods directly linked to reducing the feelings of nausea, but ginger is one that has some evidence to support its use. You can try ginger tea, ginger biscuits or even adding ginger slides to your water to see if it helps settle your stomach.

Keep busy

Unfortunately, no matter what you are doing, you will probably continue to feel lousy. So, the best thing to do is to distract yourself as much as possible as the more you focus and think about it, the worse it might feel. The busier and more engaged you are, the less you will notice and feel the nausea.